


Eavesdropping & Time

by CharacteristicallyMinor



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Phil Coulson's Cellist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 03:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4331901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharacteristicallyMinor/pseuds/CharacteristicallyMinor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint's thrilled that Phil's alive- until he learns that Phil has no memories of their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Clint was under orders to stay in the medical wing. He'd been slightly injured on a mission, and there was a chance that he had a concussion. The medical staff, as usual, took this as their cue to completely overreact and keep him overnight for observation. 

Clint, of course, had quickly decided that there was no way he was going to spend any more time in the medical wing than was absolutely necessary. And although the medical staff would beg to differ, a measly possible concussion did not qualify as necessary. So, Clint had escaped medical wing and headed into the air vents.

SHIELD really should have had more security measures on their air vents than they did. It was a huge flaw in their security system. Then again, not many people were willing to brave the air vents of SHIELD. There were rumors that the vents contained hidden traps. Those rumors had been started as Clint, as a way to ensure that he was left alone in the vents. Nobody had bothered to fix this security flaw when re-building the Helicarrier. It had been a rush job, and anyone who knew about the issue was too busy dealing with the aftermath of the Chitauri invasion. Or dead, some of them by Clint's own hand. But Clint wasn't supposed to blame himself for what he had been forced to do under Loki's influence. His therapist was quite emphatic on that point. 

Clint didn't really believe his therapist, but he knew that if he wanted to keep going on missions, he had to appear to be recovering. Although SHIELD only hired the best therapists, even they were no match for someone who'd spent as much time undercover as Clint had. 

Clint supposed that he should have let someone know about the security issue himself. But he hadn't been in any shape to consult on blueprints after the invasion. Besides, if the vents had been smaller, then he wouldn't have been able to get around the Helicarrrier so easily.

It really had been childishly easy to sneak into the vents and hide above Fury's office. Clint settled in for a good old fashioned round of eavesdropping to see if he could get any good gossip or blackmail material.


	2. Chapter 2

Nothing particularly exciting happened for the first two hours. Fury spent the majority of his time signing off on paperwork. Clint did learn that the staff of Science Lab Eight was currently being quarantined for "potential exposure to hazardous material resulting from an unexpected violent chemical reaction," and that it was the fifth time in the past four months that they had been quarantined. Clint made a note to find out what they were doing down there. It would either be interesting or result in all of their deaths, so it would be worth finding out either way.

Clint also learned that Agent Jenkinson had filed a form 720978 (colloquially known as the "I'm banging a fellow agent" form) with Agent Meyers. This meant that Sitwell had won the betting pool on when they'd finally get together. Clint had been off by three weeks, which he was pretty annoyed about, but at least he wouldn't have to deal with the painful tension that permeated any room the two of them set foot in anymore.

Clint was contemplating whether to take a short nap when Fury got a video message. Fury swore, got up, and locked the door before returning to his desk to play the message. Clint was suddenly very glad that his position gave him an excellent view of Fury's computer screen.

When the message started playing, Clint had to remind himself to keep breathing. It was from someone who looked exactly like Phil. Clint knew that was impossible, of course. Phil had died during the attack on the Helicarrier. This had to be old footage, or someone disguised to look like Phil.

"Nick. I know you're watching these messages. Please. I want to know the truth about Tahiti. I- I need to know the truth about Tahiti. And don't give me any crap about how Tahiti's a magical place. I saw that blue alien that you butchered and turned into medicine. I deserve to know the truth about what happened to me. After being dead for five days, after the open brain surgery, after begging the doctors to kill me- I deserve some answers.

"I accept that telling the full truth is impossible. I haven't contested your decision to hide my resurrection from the Avengers and from my family. I haven't tried to contact the cellist, even though we were together for two years, and I was completely in love with her. But Marcus, I've proven that I can be trusted, time and time again. Why is this different?" Phil asked. He looked- well, broken was the word that came to mind, although desperate also would have been appropriate. He visibly tried to compose himself, but he didn't fully succeed. 

"My report on the team's last few missions is attached. I am pleased to report that the team has bonded and is functioning well together. The concept of a small, mobile response team seems to be proving successful," Phil looked like he had more to say, but he ended the video there. 

"Damn it, Cheese," Fury muttered. This was the closest Clint had ever seen Fury get to looking guilty. Fury deleted the message.

Clint was too overwhelmed to even know how to react. He couldn't decide whether the message was real. The part with the blue alien was insane enough that it was probably true, and Clint had seen enough weird shit lately that the thought of Phil being brought back to life after being dead for five days was not too far fetched. And the speaker had used Phil's old nickname for Fury, which only a few people knew. 

But there was one glaring inaccuracy. Fury knew about Phil's relationship with Clint. There was no reason for Phil to use the cellist story. Clint would have thought that this meant the message was forged by someone who didn't know about their marriage, but anyone who didn't know about their marriage also didn't know Phil's nickname for Fury. Besides, everyone at SHIELD knew that Clint, Phil, and Natasha had been a team for years. There was no reason for the message to not mention them as anything other than a part of the Avengers. Maybe Phil was trying to communicate something in code? Clint couldn't figure out what, though. 

Fury seemed to believe the speaker was Phil, though, and that counted for a lot. Clint usually trusted Fury's judgment, and he was pretty sure that Fury wasn't faking his reaction. Fury was obsessive about checking for bugs in his office, and Clint had extensively tested to make sure that Fury couldn't tell that Clint was in the vents. 

Clint waited around to see if there was anything else he could learn. He wasn't disappointed. After about fifteen minutes, Fury got a phone call. Clint couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, and Fury didn't greet the caller by name. At first, it seemed like an unrelated argument, until Fury said, "It's absolutely vital that he is kept in the dark. All of the subjects who had full knowledge of the procedure went insane. As it is, he knows too much. It's a goddamn miracle that he hasn't shown any mental deterioration so far."

The other person said something in reply. 

"Keep him from contacting me. Contact with me might trigger memories of his time working on the project. After all the work we put in replacing his memories of Barton with that of a cellist, and lessening his connection to STRIKE Team Delta so that he doesn't try to contact them, I'm not going to be the one who causes him to go insane," Fury said.

Fury ended the conversation shortly after that, but Clint was left reeling. All of his half-formed plans to find Phil were immediately pushed aside. Clint was convinced that Fury was telling the truth. Everything added up. 

It hurt to think that Phil was out there, somewhere, but Clint could never contact him or see him again. It was much better than thinking that Phil was dead and it was Clint's fault, but it still hurt like hell. Clint could see why Fury had kept this from him and Natasha. It was safer for them not to know. 

Clint decided, then and there, that he wasn't going to do anything to risk Phil going insane. It sounded like Phil would be happy with his team, after some time passed. Clint would just have to be content with that knowledge.

Clint immediately started making plans.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, Clint went to visit Fury. 

"Do you have any deep cover assignments? I want one that will last years," Clint said.

"You hate deep cover assignments, Barton," Fury said, eyeing him suspiciously. 

"The other agents can't look at me without remembering that I killed their friends, Phil's dead, and Natasha's never around nowadays," Clint said bluntly. "Not to be morbid, but I'm not too attached to the life I'm currently living. Being someone else sounds pretty good right now."

Fury nodded, his expression softening slightly. Clint wondered if Fury was feeling guilty for concealing Phil's survival.

"I need eyes in the IMF. You'll start as a field agent, but transition to being an analyst after something goes wrong in the field. I don't care what it is, just pick something convenient," Fury said. "You'll report directly to me. If I'm unavailable, Hill will do it. No one else can know. This will be completely off the record."

Clint wondered whether it was off the record to hide it from IMF hackers, or to hide it from Phil. Probably both, knowing Fury. 

"Your new name will be William Brandt," Fury said.


	4. Chapter 4

Phil started questioning his other memories after finding out the truth about his death. If Tahiti was fake, what else had been changed? Agent May had claimed that he seemed no different than he was before dying, but they hadn't been close since before Bahrain. She wouldn't have necessarily known if something fairly recent had been changed. And, for that matter, she probably wouldn't have told him even if she did know.

Now that Phil knew what he was looking for, he started noticing that other memories of his had been tampered with. They had the same slight feeling of... well, he really couldn't describe it as anything more specific than "wrongness."

It didn't take Phil long to realize that he should remember more about the Cellist than he did. The memories of her all felt fake. He knew the basic information. She was blonde and had blue eyes. She was from Portland. Her name was Francesca. She never looked more comfortable than when she had a bow in her hand; she was passionate about what she did.

But Phil didn't know if she had a sweet tooth or liked spicy foods. Didn't remember the way her voice sounded when she was saying goodbye. Didn't remember what she tasted like when they kissed.

He remembered loving her, but that wasn't enough to convince him. 

He asked May about it soon after he started getting suspicious.

"Did you ever meet the Cellist?"

"No, I didn't get the chance to. We didn't spend much time together, the past few years. We still kept in touch, but not enough for me to have met your girlfriend. You know this, though. Why are you asking?" May asked.

"I don't think she was real. My memories of her feel fake," Phil replied.

"You mentioned that you were dating a cellist when we talked a month before New York. She definitely existed," May replied.

"But did you ever see any pictures of her?" Phil prodded. "Do you know anyone who met her?"

"No, I don't. But why would SHIELD give you false memories about your girlfriend? What would they have to gain from that?" she questioned. "I know you're upset about the false memories surrounding your death, but there's no reason for you to think that everything else is false."

"I don't know why I'd have false memories of a girlfriend yet. But there's definitely something wrong. Why do I call my girlfriend the Cellist? If we were so close, I'd surely think of her by her name, not her profession," Phil said.

May seemed unconvinced, but nodded. "I still think it's unlikely that SHIELD invented a fake girlfriend for you, but I'll help you. But be careful; if SHIELD hid the memories, they had a reason. You might not like what you find."

"I have to know," he said. He knew that it would hurt if he learned that the Cellist wasn't real. But he wanted his life back, his real life.

It turned out that there wasn't a cellist in Portland named Francesca. Phil hadn't looked her up before, since he had thought that a clean break would be less painful. But now that he did, he realized that the position he thought Francesca had was filled by a woman named Hannah. A woman who looked absolutely nothing like Francesca, and who Phil definitely had no memory of.

Phil checked the address in the Cellist's file. He hadn't looked up ownership records on it before, but he did so now. Phil learned that the house was actually a SHIELD safe house. He had apparently stayed there three years ago, during a mission with the Black Widow and Hawkeye.

When Phil thought about it, he started remembering it. Not all of the stay, but parts. Clint smiling, bruised but okay. Natasha sharpening her knives while they watched TV. Clint laughing. Clint singing while making dinner.

Clint leaning in to kiss him. Phil kissing back.

Those memories felt real.

Once Phil remembered Portland, more of his memories came back. He realized that he'd been in a relationship with Clint ever since Portland. It had been too dangerous to let people know that they were dating each other, of course. That would make them liabilities in the field. Only a few people had known- Natasha, Jasper, and Fury. The Cellist had been their cover story.

Phil didn't know who to contact first: Clint, to tell him that he was alive and apologize for ever forgetting him, or Fury, to yell at until he got some answers. Of course, those plans were put on hold while he searched for the Clairvoyant. He had to settle for a video message to Fury, and there was no way to contact Clint, since the SHIELD database listed his status as classified above even Phil's clearance level. 

And then it all went to hell; Fury was dead, and SHIELD was full of Nazis. 

Phil barely had time to think about Clint, except to spare a thought that he hoped that Clint was alive and not a Nazi. He didn't think Clint was Hydra, but then again, he hadn't thought that Sitwell was Hydra, either. 

Once Phil became the head of SHIELD, he started looking for Clint. It wasn't just for personal reasons; SHIELD could definitely use someone with his talents. But wherever he was, he was well hidden. Phil wished that he had asked Fury when he had the chance.


	5. Chapter 5

Clint had settled into his new life as William Brandt reasonably well. He wasn't happy; happiness had been pretty far out of reach ever since the invasion, ever since Phil died. But he was stable, and not actively unhappy, per say. 

He'd been shocked when SHIELD had turned out to be half-filled with Hydra. He would have gone to help, but he wasn't sure there was anything he could do, by the time he found out about it. Natasha clearly was doing fine on her own, Fury was dead, Sitwell was Hydra, and Hill was working for Stark. That pretty much covered everyone he knew well enough to specifically look into, and SHIELD himself was almost completely beyond help. He couldn't find any information on Phil, which he hoped was a good sign. Clint was almost positive Phil wasn't Hydra, but he had no clue where Phil was or who he had been working with. 

Clint did what he could, in his position with IMF. Almost nobody knew he was connected to SHIELD, so he escaped any fallback for that. There were a few members of Hydra in IMF itself, but not to the same extent as Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD, so they were beaten off pretty quickly.

Clint started going out on missions more often once SHIELD fell. IMF was trying to take over some of the slack in SHIELD's absence, even though they were unused to dealing with altered humans or aliens. He was still mostly an analyst, as Fury had ordered, but he'd started taking field missions after "learning" that Ethan Hunt's wife was alive. It would have been out of character not to, and he was actually starting to miss the field. Not that he'd felt any relief hearing that Ethan Hunt's wife was alive- considering the fact that, once he'd caught on, he'd secretly helped make sure their plan went smoothly, it wasn't at all a surprise to him. It had been a convenient excuse to get out of the field, though. He knew how to play a guilty man very well, even if he was learning to not to blame himself for what he'd been forced to do by Loki. Learning about the real traitors to SHIELD had helped him realize that he wasn't one of them. 

A few months after SHIELD fell, Clint was sent out on a solo mission. There were reports of people levitating in a small town in Maine. IMF was pretty sure it was a hoax, but they sent him out to double check that it was. He was just doing recon; if there really was something going on, he was under orders to wait for backup. 

There were many reasons why the IMF wasn't a particularly bad organization to work for, but their reactions to what SHIELD would have called 0-8-4's left much to be desired. Clint was pretty sure the reports were true, but he didn't tell his supervisor that; he was pretty sure he'd do a better job of dealing with an 0-8-4 solo than with some of the other agents he'd been on missions with. They were excellent when dealing with other humans, but still novices when it came to weirder missions.

When Clint got to the town, he could tell that something was wrong. He went to investigate the bar where he'd traced most of the levitators back to, and his suspicions proved correct. He wasn't the first one to investigate the 0-8-4.

Clint had been careful before, but he was even more on guard when he realized. He ran through a list of likely suspects, and ended up with half a dozen organizations. Hydra was right at the top of the list; this would have been right up SHIELD's alley, and as a result, many Hydra operatives had the training and interest in 0-8-4's to locate this one. 

Clint wasn't stupid. He knew that he should be calling his handler and requesting backup. If he'd still been with SHIELD, he probably would have. But if the operatives were truly Hydra, then this was personal. And anyways, he rationalized, gut feelings weren't sufficient reason to call in backup.

The bar owner said that the people who'd collected the "weird metallic gadget" had headed towards the far side of town, where there was nothing but empty fields. Clint thought that they almost definitely had some kind of transportation waiting there. The empty fields made Clint think that they had some sort of aircraft; if it was Hydra, probably a quinjet. 

Clint found the particular field that they had been headed to without too much trouble. They'd been very careful to hide their trail, of course, but Clint was well known for his vision. He could see a few places where the other group- whoever they were- had tried to cover their tracks. 

Finally, Clint saw a person. He crouched in the undergrowth at the edge of the field, trying to figure out what they were doing. There wasn't an aircraft there, unless it had cloaking tech. And if there was cloaking tech, then that almost definitely meant Hydra. It wasn't confirmed that any other organization had cloaking technology, although he had heard rumors about almost every organization developing it. The rumors were mostly just that, rumors, although Clint had seen firsthand that the IMF did have cloaking technology. He was positive that it wasn't the IMF, though; they kept their cloaking technology reserved for the use of only a select few high-ranking agents, and there was no reason they'd send the likes of Ethan Hunt to deal with a rumor like this. 

Clint was about to creep closer, when he realized that someone had come up behind him. He wondered how he'd missed that; there were very few agents good enough to take him by surprise. Clint dropped to the ground in case they were planning to shoot him, reaching out for the other person's leg on his way down. He'd hoped to get them off-balance, but they managed to twist out of it. They tried to kick him, but he caught their leg and twisted it up. He looked up and saw his attacker's face. 

"May?" Clint asked. 

"Barton," May replied, recognizing him. 

May kept fighting, so Clint did, too. He was never against talking while he fought, though.

"Come on, it was bad enough Sitwell turned out to be Hydra, but you, too?" Clint said. "If any more of Phil's friends turn out to be Hydra, I'm going to start wondering about whether he was, too." 

May didn't reply. She and Clint were about evenly matched in hand to hand, and Clint knew that this could go bad, fast. Soon afterwards, Clint failed to block a well-aimed punch and quickly lost consciousness.


	6. Chapter 6

He woke up in a weird-looking cell. He was handcuffed, but he wasn't tied up otherwise, which meant they were pretty confident that he couldn't get out of the cell. Clint knew that being punched wouldn't leave him unconscious for too long, unless they did something to extend it. He didn't have any marks indicating he'd been injected with something, and his mouth didn't have the aftertaste he associated with being force-fed drugs, so he was pretty confident they weren't too far from the site of the 0-8-4. 

Then, Clint noticed that he could feel the cell moving slightly. He realized there was a pretty good chance he was on a cloaked aircraft, which meant they could be heading anywhere, and escaping would be pretty hard.

Clint heard faint voices outside the cell. It sounded like a man and a woman were arguing, but he couldn't make out any details beyond that. Finally, the door opened. 

Clint had been expecting May or some nameless Hydra interrogator. Instead, in walked the last person he'd expected to see on a Hydra plane, or indeed, ever again.

"Hello, Clint," Phil Coulson said.


	7. Chapter 7

When May told Phil that she'd captured Clint Barton, he didn't believe her. Phil had been looking for him for months. The odds of just stumbling across him in Maine were insanely low. And yet, there he was on the video feed from the Cage. 

"Do you have any idea what he was doing here?" Phil asked. "I mean, he was after the 0-8-4, but is he with Hydra?"

"I'm not sure. It isn't like them to send one man after an artifact; Hydra would usually send a team of soldiers for something like this," May said. "However, this could be a trap. Hydra knows you used to work with him; it's definitely possible that they sent him to Maine specifically to get to you."

"Did he say anything to you?" Phil asked May.

"He acted like he thought I was Hydra. He made a comment about how if any more of your friends turn out to be Hydra, he'll start wondering if you were Hydra. It sounded like he thought you were dead," May said. "That's what he would say if he was a Hydra plant, though."

"But it's also what he'd think if he wasn't Hydra. Now that SHIELD's mostly gone, it's logical to assume that any group with SHIELD tech and SHIELD agents is Hydra," Phil said. "We can't know until we've questioned him. 

"If he's a Hydra plant, you're playing right into his hands!" May said. "I should go in there to question him."

"It's just as likely that Hydra would send him after you. They want you dead as much as they want me dead, and it was you that he attacked first," Phil argued. "I know him better than you do; I have a better chance of being able to tell if he's lying."

Before May could argue, Phil opened the door to the Cage. He knew that May was probably right, but he had to see Clint. 

"Hello, Clint," Phil said, trying to keep his voice level. 

"Phil," Clint said, sounding shocked. "Wow. I- I'd hoped you were alive, but I had no way of finding out after SHIELD fell. Then again, you're probably Hydra, which definitely puts a downer on this."

"You were aware I survived Loki's attack?" Phil asked, feeling betrayed. If Clint had known he was alive, then he must have worked on Tahiti. And if he'd worked on Tahiti, then he must have agreed to have Phil's memories of their relationship removed. 

"I was spying on Fury's office, and I saw him watch a video message from you. There was some kind of medical treatment from a blue alien corpse that saved you? I didn't quite understand that bit," Clint replied. 

"Then why didn't you let me know?" Phil asked. 

"Umm, it might be a bad idea to tell you, but I'm already here so the harm's already done. Fury mentioned in a phone call to someone that seeing people from your past might make you go insane," Clint said. "Are you feeling insane? Then again, it might be hard to tell, if you're working for Hydra."

Phil considered Clint's explanation. It seemed plausible. He knew that most of his memories of working on Tahiti were mixed in with his memories of planning their wedding, since they'd taken place during the same period of time. It was possible that Fury had thought that remembering Clint would make him remember Tahiti. It was definitely a better explanation for his lost memories than anything he'd come up with.

"I'm not working for Hydra," Phil said. If Clint was Hydra, he'd already know that; if Clint wasn't, it would hopefully stop him from trying to escape until they sorted this out.

"I'd like to believe that, really, but you're making it pretty hard. You expect me to believe that Hydra just let two top SHIELD agents escape on a SHIELD aircraft. I mean, you two are good, but May's been out of the field for years, and you're recovering from being dead," Clint said.

"I could say the same of you. You're a high profile target; Hydra would love to get their hands on an Avenger, either to kill you or recruit you. I find it unlikely that you've survived this long by chasing after 0-8-4's on your own and not watching your back," Phil said.

"So we have a stalemate. Neither of us can prove that we're not part of Hydra," Clint said. 

"Just out of curiosity, what would you consider proof?" Phil asked.

"Word from someone who's definitively not Hydra, I guess. Which would mean- definitely Nat or Cap. Maybe Stark or Banner. I'd say Thor, too, but he thought Loki was a good guy, so his judgment is questionable. I'd be suspicious about any other high level SHIELD agent, except Hill. And actually, that solves the second problem. Hill's probably the only one on the planet who can vouch for the fact I'm not Hydra," Clint said. "So, what do you say? Will Hill vouch for you?"

Phil considered the possibilities. Hill was definitely not Hydra. If she could provide proof that Clint wasn't Hydra, he'd accept it. If Clint was Hydra, though, he might be doing this to get to Hill. Phil judged that to be unlikely, though. There were simpler ways to get to Hill. And if Phil called her, that would minimize the risk to her. Unless, of course, she was being forced to vouch for Clint. But if that was the case, she'd be able to communicate that to him in code; they had contingency plans in place in case that ever happened.

"I'll call her, then," Phil said. He placed a video call to Agent Hill. Phil watched Clint's face and saw that he looked relieved. 

"Hello?" Hill answered. She looked normal. 

"I'm here with Clint Barton. He says you'll tell me he's not Hydra," Phil said.

"He isn't," Hill said. "He's been undercover with IMF. He was instrumental in fighting some of their members who turned out to be Hydra."

"You're sure," Phil said. giving her the chance to tell him she was being forced to say that. If she replied with the word "sure," that was the signal that she wasn't talking of her own free will.

"I'm positive," Hill said. "And before you ask, Barton, Coulson isn't Hydra. He's been working with the remnants of SHIELD. And since you probably want proof that I'm me, you wrote your report on 11/28/13 in limerick form. I have no clue what possessed you to do that, but nevertheless."

"Is that enough for you?" Phil asked. "It is for me."

"Yeah. I believe her," Clint said.

"Glad to hear it. Now, sorry to hang up on you, but Stark's about to set my office on fire," Hill said, hanging up immediately after. 

"Um. Weird question, but do you remember our last conversation before Loki came? It's not a big deal, I just want to double check," Clint said.

Phil had no trouble decoding that statement.

"Either you're checking on whether I remember our marriage, to which the answer is yes, or else you're checking that I'm really me, in which case it was a phone call about our plans to spend some time together while I was in New Mexico," Phil replied.

"Thank god," Clint said. "It was the first one, although the second one doesn't hurt. I can't imagine trying to pretend I'm not in love with you. I mean, I was fine lying to the other agents when we were at SHIELD, but that was because I knew you knew it was a lie."

"Still?" Phil asked hesitantly. "I mean, you thought you were never going to see me again. I would understand if you've moved on."

"I don't think I could," Clint replied. "Are you asking because you have?"

"No," Phil said, unable to stop himself from laughing from sheer delight. "No, I feel the same way you do."

Phil finally allowed himself to pull Clint into his arms. 

"God, I missed this," Clint said.

They stayed together for as long as Phil felt like they could before he regretfully let go of Clint. 

"I'm going to have to go explain to May," Phil said. 

"It's fine. We have time," Clint said.

Phil smiled at the thought that yes, they finally did.


End file.
